


Through the Veil

by SensationalSunburst



Series: PawPaw!Cor [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor is OLD, Cor was 15 when he went on Regis's roadtrip!?!, Fluff, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insomina is Rebuilt, Let's be honest, Mostly Fluff, PawPaw Cor, Post-Dawn, Someone would have made a museum out of Prompto's photos, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10043369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SensationalSunburst/pseuds/SensationalSunburst
Summary: Or Five Times Cor Leonis Saw a Ghost and One Time He Heard OneThey say old soldiers have their ghosts.Cor didn't think they meant literally.





	1. The Eldest Amicitia

Cor quite liked the Argentum Museum of Art, it was bright and open, just as the boy it was named after had been. Constructed in honor of the brave men and women who gave their lives to bring the Dawn, it stood adjacent to the ruins of the Citadel, which had been preserved to stand as Insomnia’s largest memorial and a reminder of what had been lost to reclaim the city. He’d had a say in the design as the last of the "old guard"; yet embarrassingly enough the only thing he’d thought to say was;

“Natural light. Prompto loved sunshine.”

Yet the architects (a team made up of both Insomnian an Altissian citizens) had taken his suggestion to heart and had designed the main gallery in such a way that at times the place was nearly blinding. They had ensured however, the the photographs adorning the walls were never in direct sunlight, lest they be damaged, except for one.

Protected by glass designed to filter out the sun’s harmful rays, one photograph stood above the rest, blown up to rival the murals that used to hang in the Citadel’s lobby. Prompto, Gladiolus, Ignis and Noctis were huddled next to a newly repaired Regalia, unaware of the heartbreak and trials ahead. It'd been one of the first photos that Cor had found on Prompto's camera; he knew that it would have been the one he would have chosen as well. All of his photos had been saved and backed-up, as they had been too historically significant to not guard, but there were a few that Cor felt should never be on display. A photo of a newly blinded Ignis, for example, poorly shot in comparison with the rest of the boy's work, a landscape of the ruins of Insomnia 10 years into the Endless Night; some shots simply felt too raw, too personal, for public display.

Cor had his back to the largest and arguably brightest of the photos now, as it made his heart ache in an uncomfortable way and instead was reading the caption of another of display aloud to the three year old perched on his hip and the other whose harness he held in an iron grasp.

“King Noctis was gifted by the Crystal with the power of teleportation. After warping, an imprint of his person was left behind, capturing the fleeting frozen image of the King in mid-strike” Cor read. Holly had her head rested on his shoulder, raven curls a curtain in front of disinterested amber eyes.

“Mommy do that too?” Camellia, the youngest triplet, asked, tugging again at the bright yellow Chocobo themed harness that was strapped around her torso. Despite his age, Cor held the leash firmly, preventing her from plastering her fingerprints over the display case.

(“Is that a leash? For a child?” He’d been incredulous when Iris had dropped them off at his apartment in the wee hours in the morning, called to an emergency meeting and in need of a babysitter.

“Trust me,” She sighed, talking over a high pitched wail while she gently attempted to pry Holly’s tiny claw like fingers off of her lapel, “You’ll need it. Otherwise she bolts like a startled chocobo. Besides, she doesn’t mind it.”)

“No. Only members of the Kingsglaive and the Crownsguard were able to share the Crystal’s powers.” Cor responded patiently enough, despite the fact that this was perhaps the hundredth time the child had asked.  

Cor cut his gaze to his left and looked over the top of his glasses at where Talcott had Iris’s final triplet, Aster, balanced on his shoulders to get a closer look at a replica of Prompto’s camera. Her face was ecstatic as she pressed her nose into the glass, pointing at the lenses on dislay. Talcott, ever the patient babysitter when Iris was waylaid by council duties, was explaining that no, that was not the real camera, yes, someone was taking care of the actual camera and no, Uncle Prompto won’t be wanting it back.

“Uncle Iggy?” Holly asked, pointing at the so, so young Ignis. Unlike her sisters, Holly had a disdain for the morning that would have rivaled Noctis, and as she asked her question, her head remained firmly on Cor’s shoulder, one tiny hand curled loosely in the collar of his shirt.

“Yes, they were all members of Noctis’s Crownsguard.”

“Uncle Gladdy!!” Camellia's sudden cry was accompanied by a violent yanking on her harness, hard enough to force Cor to turn around or risk dislocation of his arm socket via over excited toddler.

“Uncle Gladdy! Uncle Gladdy!” Holly, who had jackknifed into awareness at her sister’s hysteria turned and begun to call out in echo.

Cor was suddenly quite glad that the gallery was empty for reasons besides misbehaving munchins, because standing in front of the main mural, his massive back turned away from him, was none other than Gladiolus Amicitia.

Cor wasn’t quite sure if he was hallucinating or not. He looked to Talcott, but found that he and Aster had moved into the neighboring room, and from what he could see of Aster’s enthusiastic wiggling arms, they were unaware of his current predicament. He turned his gaze back front, fully expecting the image to have faded, but found that no. The man was still there.

It was Gladiolus alright, but not as Cor had last seen him, worn down by the darkness and scared. This was the young man he’d seen off on a bright summer morning a lifetime ago on a journey he known he may not return from.

Another son he’d failed to save.

Gladiolus tattooed wings rippled as he threw his head back in laughter and slung his arm around a mostly invisible figure to his right. Of his companion, the only thing visible was a pale freckled shoulder leading down to a single, fingerless glove. Gladiolus swayed, obviously tugging the other person in towards his chest, but it was like looking at a mirage. His eyes were straining to see what his mind knew was there, shimmering just beyond his perception. Gladiolus however, was mostly solid, only his hands and lower legs held the same translucent quality.

Cor knew very well that the painkillers his doctor had prescribed him had a laundry list of side effects. ‘Which could be worsened,’ he could remember her saying, face tight beneath her thick glasses, ‘as the disease progresses.’ But this felt like something altogether different, like he was looking through a sheer curtain at a scene he wasn’t supposed to be seeing.

The second thing that struck the former Marshall was that despite the movement of his mouth and the broad gestures of his hands that indicated that he was most certainly speaking, Cor could not hear Gladiolus’s voice. Their sleepy Tuesday morning visit to the museum meant that the place was practically deserted, its bright marbled gut devoid of the crush of humanity it was prone to on busier weekends. The girl's voices, continually rising in pitch as Cor’s feet unconsciously brought him towards the specter, rang and bounced along the rooms high ceilings, but still, nothing from knights mouth. The closer Cor got, the faster the other figure faded, leaving Gladiolus standing alone with his arm resting atop invisible shoulders.

“Uncle Gladdy!”

Gladiolus turned, confusion on his face for a moment before his expression melted into pure, unadulterated joy. He turned towards his unseen companion and pointed at Camellia who was straining against her harness like an overexcited puppy. He took a step forward, mouth moving rapidly as he bent down to wave at the girl before his eyes traveled up to the child leaning forward from the sturdy shelf of Cor’s arms. Holly was making grabby hands, clearly wanting to switch steeds, but with a visible jolt of surprise, Gladiolus seemed to realize that Cor was there.

Eternally chapped lips formed his name, and hallucination or not, Cor found himself nodding in acknowledgment. Gladiolus stood, lips again moving too quickly for him to catch anything. Gladiolus looked to his left, and nodded with a quirk of his lips that meant his wasn’t pleased with whatever his unseen companion had told him.

Gladiolus turned back, and his lips twisted into a crooked smirk as he carefully mouthed “You. Are. Old.”  

Cor shrugged, and was slowly becoming more and more convinced that he was not hallucinating at all. The Gladiolus of his mind would never have given him so much shit. Gladiolus's smile suddenly took on a sad edge, and Cor noticed that Gladiolus was beginning to rapidly dissipate. His image seemed to swim, a drop of ink in a pond and the girls’s excited chatter instantly turned to disappointed whining.

“Don’t go Uncle Gladdy!”

“-stay! Stay!”

Gladiolus turned his brightest, most charming smile on them, silencing their whining with a wink and a wave as his image dispersed completely.

“You are sorely missed.” Cor sighed at last, surprising himself with the frog that had lodged itself firmly in his throat.

Suddenly, Cor felt the warmth of a hand far too large to be Talcott's settle gently on his shoulder. The warmth grew and spread until he was wrapped in hit like a blanket. Gratitude, stronger than anything he had ever felt before, washed over him and even without a voice, Cor could hear him.

_Thank you, for looking after them._

Cor found himself smiling.

“Of course.”


	2. Argentum By The Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Cor had stumbled upon Gladiolus, or his spirit...or hallucination (he wasn’t quite sure yet) then Prompto sought him out.

If Cor had stumbled upon Gladiolus, or his spirit...or hallucination (he wasn’t quite sure yet) then Prompto sought him out. Cor had managed to maneuver his way to down to sit with his feet dangling in the crystal waters of Galdin Quay, and was casually leaning against the plaque commemorating when the Dawn King caught The Devil of the Cygillan on a break from his epic quest to rescue Lucis when he’d felt a strangely familiar presence approach behind him.

Cor had initally scoffed when he’d read the plaque, carved from a stone resembling obsidian to honor the last of the line of Lucis. Noctis had been a natural at fishing, the stillness required to capture the most skittish of fish came naturally to the boy, and when Regis had discovered that it was something his chronically disinterested son had enjoyed, especially after the Marilith attack, he had gone out of his way to order the building a small fishing pond behind the Citadel. It would have surprised no one who knew the prince that he had stopped on occasion during his journey to indulge in his favorite pastime.

Cindy had invited him along to a roadside assistance call to an old hunter friend whose van had refused to start in the parking lot of the resort. Oiginally Cor was only in town because he’d driven down from Insomnia with Talcott to deliver newly designed super-bright headlights to the famous Hammerhead Garage. They were delivering the prototypes to Cindy when his adopted granddaughter insisted that some fresh ocean air would do his battered lungs some good.

He’d agreed without argument. He was retired after all, what else did he have to do? There were no more wars to be fought, no clandestine missions to be planned. No more demons to be slayed, empires to topple, sons to bury. His sylleblossoms, gifted by the first Tenebraen ambassadors to visit Insomnia after the Dawn, were flourishing despite the city's heat, and the stray cat that occasionally lounged on his balcony knew _damn well_ where to find food in the ever generous streets. His schedule was wide open.

Cor had been leisurely making his way to the haven located just off the resort's grounds, drawn there as soon as he had determined that Cindy wasn’t going to be asking for his help, when he had been waylaid by a coughing fit so fierce it had nearly brought him to his knees. The sun was preparing to dip below the horizon, casting a rainbow of orange, yellows and purples across the sky, yet despite the many years since deamons had prowled the night, most people still headed inside before night completely fell, meaning that there wasn’t a soul around to witness him spitting red laced saliva into the sand.

The old soldier took the hint and settled down to rest at the first available spot; the old pier. It was still operational, rebuilt by local fishermen after the Dawn, and he had waved a dismissive hand at the teenage attendant as he passed, indicating his desire to be left alone. His landing was a little rough, but as he closed his eyes to the warm ocean breeze, he could almost hear Regis calling him over to train in the sand; an overeager prince on his own wedding journey.

He felt, rather than heard, someone sit beside him.

Blue eyes slipped open, a dismissive strike on the tip of his tongue as he turned to see who had disturbed an old man lost in memory. But it all slipped away, forgotten and unused as he registered Prompto Argentum’s smiling face beside him.

Cor blinked.

Prompto gave a friendly wave, then pointed at Cor before curling his thumb and pointer finger into an ‘O’-shape, obviously attempting to ask him  ‘Are you OK?’

At this, Cor gave a noncommittal shrug. But Prompto frowned slightly and turned toward him fully, pulling his legs up from dangling at the water’s edge to folded neatly beneath him. He raised his eyebrows before repeating his attempt at sign language.

“I'm old, Prompto, I get tired.” Cor sighed, not at all surprised that the young man sitting before him was able to draw him out.

Like Gladiolus, Prompto appeared as his younger self, twenty something, thankfully free of that gods awful attempt at a goatee and sans the fine crows feet around his eyes from ten years of troubled frowning. He was as fresh faced as the day Cor had taken him to be fitted for his Crownsguard uniform, a bundle of nervous energy wrapped in black leather and golden chains. Unlike the massive Shield however, Prompto was far more solid; only the tips of his teased out hair held that ethereal translucency that indicated that he most definitely wasn’t truly.. There.

“But I admit, it is good to see you.”

Prompto’s lips split into a blinding smile and he pointed at Cor again before holding up two fingers. ‘You too.’ He tilted his head and seemed to take in Cor from head to foot, his lips twitching as he took in the weathered black boots, grey hair, comfortable black trousers, wrinkled skin, and black dress shirt. Then, he carefully mouthed, ‘You. Did. Get. Old.’

Cor turned a withering glare at the boy, but couldn’t help the twitching of his lips into a smile as Prompto threw his head back in a silent laugh. Again, his ghosts had no voices, but at least Prompto seemed to have spoken to Gladiolus and gotten the memo about the communication barrier.

A realization dawned on Cor’s face, prompting Prompto to sit up in anticipation.

“Are the others with you?”

Prompto’s smile grew to a mega-watt quality and he nodded hard enough to nearly knock himself over. He turned and pointed over his shoulder at the haven before turning back and mimicking pushing glasses on top of his nose.

Cor squinted over Prompto's shoulder but saw no one around the still unlit glyphs on the smooth rockface. When he turned his gaze back to the blonde, the boy repeated his mime, his face stoic and still.

“Ignis?”

An enthusiastic nod.

Prompto then flexed his nonexistent muscles and flattened his hands to the side of his head.

“Gladiolus.” That much was obvious.

Prompto nodded again. Then he pillowed his hands under his head, closed his eyes and drew his lips into a petulant frown.

“Noctis.”

Prompto laughed this time along with his nod, his hair shining golden in the light of the setting sun. He clapped his hands together, the sound stolen by whatever barrier stood between them and nodded before searching the sky for a moment before pointing just over Cor’s shoulder. He turned and found that Prompto was pointing up at the sliver of the emerging moon.

Cor lifted an eyebrow at Prompto, unimpressed with his lackluster charades, but Prompto only pointed again before following it up with his sign for Noctis.

Noctis and the moon?

“Lunafreya.” Cor guessed after a moment,.

Again, Prompto clapped and nodded. A toddler in a grown man’s body.

“That's good to hear.”  He finished. And it was. They deserved happiness, he figured, as much as the Gods could give, after the shitstorm that had been their lives. He wondered briefly if Cid, Weskham and Regis were together as well; if Aulea has been there to greet them all as they had crossed. If there was any justice in this world, he thought, she would have been.

Cor turned his gaze away from his thoughts and back towards the ghost at hand and barely resisted his instinctive frown when he saw that Prompto’s form was beginning to dissolve in the same manner that Gladious had. Prompto’s smile had turned gentle as if he too knew what was happening and he urgently began to struggle to mime something else.  He pointed at Cor repeatedly and then pointed his thumb over his shoulder, back towards the haven. His hands then went wide, pointer finger extended as he tried to gesture towards all of the Quay at once. Cor caught none of it. Instead, he reached out, going to try to catch the young man’s hand to silence him, but as soon as his fingers approached Prompto’s, Prompto's gloved hands faded like fog in the afternoon sun.

Both men were stunned into stillness, but Cor immediately shoved off the massively disquieting feeling of the phantom warmth of Prompto’s hands scattering beneath his weathered palms and moved on.

“I suspect our time has grown short, but it is important for you to know- For me to tell you.” In Shiva’s name, when was that last time that he had struggled for words? “How well you did.”

Prompto looked shocked, and the thought that the boy was shocked by praise still raised Cor’s hackles. Someone had hurt that child deeply if even in death he doubted his worth. Prompto’s hand was instantly rubbing at his wrist, where Cor had noticed a barcode was most definitely _not_.

“You were thrown into a complete clusterfuck of situation that none could ever prepare for, something completely beyond the scope of Ignis’s studies or Gladiolus’s training; a nightmare that an army would have struggled to overcome, and yet, you thrived. You performed admirably, Prompto Argentum, and I will never be able to express how proud I am of you.”

Prompto’s image was disappearing with the sun, but despite his shimmering visage, Cor could make out tears on the boy’s freckled cheeks. A tiny frown crumbled Cor’s features as he reached for an uncomfortable apology, but as Cor looked closer, he saw that Prompto was smiling.

Cor was suddenly struck with the feeling that it was the most genuine expression he’d ever seen on the boy.

The last of the sun’s rays took Prompto with them but even as the last of his image dissipated, Cor could still feel Prompto’s presence in the form of a great, all encompassing warmth.

It lingered there beside him, comforting and familiar, until Cindy came to find him, long after the night had come and the wind had calmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to comment below! I really appreciate the feedback! Your support is amazing! I'm so happy to see that there are other Cor fans out there, and people who really needed a happier ending! 
> 
> Much love!
> 
> P. S.- I've been waiting SOO LONG to make that 'Prompting prompto joke' OMG


	3. The Adviser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Honestly, this is how you spend your afterlife? Attending meetings?” Cor kept his voice low, attempting to not appear completely insane to the government workers milling about, but Ignis simply raised one delicate eyebrow and nodded, as if to say ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna thank everyone again for coming along this ride with me. This is my first fic of this length and I really, really appreciate your support and comments.

Cor was eternally grateful for railings as he made his way up the truly unnecessary steps towards Insomina’s City Hall. He cast a disdainful sidelong glance to his shaking hands as they gripped the wrought iron and thanked the Gods that he hadn’t entirely given up his fitness regime now that it was peacetime. He couldn’t imagine making his way up the stairs without it; especially not with his treacherous lungs giving up halfway through the climb.

Around him, the city bustled with life as reporters, interns and assistants effortlessly jogged up and down the marble steps, either blissfully unaware or respectfully ignoring his struggle. Cor resolutely did not sigh as he decided that a small break was in order, and he turned to observe the lively new city center. The roof of the Citadel was in view, the glass they’d used to patch the gaping hole in its roof reflected gold in the early morning sun. It had been installed to preserve the memorial’s interior as opposed to allowing the elements to ravage the still mostly intact throne room and the grand, ornate carpeting.

He blinked, and he could still see the massive crimson stain spilling out from around that cursed throne.

(“Leave it.” He’d intoned, visibly shocking the assembled Restoration Council; even the stenographer had paused. “There is no use trying to clean it. There is no reason for anyone else to even climb the dias.” Cor often remained silent at these meetings, as he understood he was more a figurehead than an actual member of the Restoration and Memorial Councils. He was a the last of his kind. Last of the Old Guard and servants of Lucis; his advice was invaluable but often unneeded. So he had defaulted to not giving it, lest the council be on the verge of some grave misstep.

There had been silence then, the council members looking uncomfortably between themselves before Iris herself, overlooking the assembly, had nodded once and declared,

“Then it’s decided. Now, moving on to the unreclaimed districts.”)

The smell of spearmint was what shook him out of his reprieve and as Cor glanced to his left, he was unsurprised to find Ignis Scientia patiently waiting on the other side of the railing. Realizing he had been noticed, Ignis inclined his head, and Cor returned the gesture automatically.

“Honestly, this is how you spend your afterlife? Attending meetings?” Cor kept his voice low, attempting to not appear completely insane to the government workers milling about, but Ignis simply raised one delicate eyebrow and nodded, as if to say ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

In death Ignis had apparently been gifted his vision, as despite the fact that he was sporting the softer pompadour of his thirties, well after he had been robbed of his sight in the disastrous ritual of Leviathan, his soft green eyes were crystal clear behind thin wire frames. He was dressed casually in a tight, rich purple dress shirt and black slacks; an outfit Cor had remembered seeing before.

“Well, I fear this visit will be a bit boring. “ Cor warned, as Ignis’s expectant expression had prompted him to restart his journey to the main hall, “I can’t very well chat with you in public. I do have some semblance of a reputation to uphold.”  

Ignis had nodded once, an affirmative, but nevertheless had accompanied Cor through his slow journey up the stairs, patiently waited as he took another short rest at the top, and settled beside him in the upper balcony of the grand chamber. City Hall was built to mimic the grand meeting halls of the Citadel with its almost colosseum like design. Council members sat in concentric circles with the moderator’s podium situated at the far end of the room. Above it all however, was a half moon shaped balcony for public observation; which is where Cor and Ignis had set up residence as Iris called the meeting into session. They were alone in their loft, as the public wasn’t as inclined to attend the early morning sessions as they were in the afternoon.

Ignis had that ever present notebook out, Cor noticed, but when he tilted his head to attempt to read the man’s neat script, he found that the words were as blurry as if he were trying to read them underwater. The Marshall squinted, then removed his glasses, but still the image would not clear.

“Spoken _and_ written word is prohibited, I suppose.” Cor whispered as he caught Ignis’s curious glance. Ignis rolled his shoulders and shrugged, and Cor had the feeling that there weren’t many others that were visited in the same way he was.

“...the issue of course, is where to place the statue at all. Some have suggested aligning it so that the sun illuminates it completely on the solstice or on the first morning of the Dawn Festival.”

Both Cor and Ignis snapped to attention at the mention of the Dawn and leaned forward in unison to listen in on the discussion below.

“Certainly not on the Dawn Festival,” answered an unseen man, he was sitting just under the balcony and out of view. “We’ve established an annual date for that, the sun may well shift from His Majesty's face over time.”

Murmurs of agreement rose over the crowd, but Cor was preoccupied with the troubled expression marring Ignis’s face. For one thought to be unshakably stoic, Cor found that Ignis’s face showed his emotions freely, even if it wasn’t quite as dramatic as Prompto.

Having learned his lesson the last time he attempted to touch one of his ghosts, Cor simply mimed tapping the boy’s leg to grab his attention. Ignis attempted to school his expression into something more even as he turned his face towards Cor, but there was distress in the soft wrinkles of his forehead.

“Noctis wouldn’t appreciate a statue, would he?” Cor already knew the answer, but he waited for Ignis’s tight nod regardless. His long fingers tapped his pen against his notebook’s page, itching to be able to scribble some message before his shoulders dropped in a defeated, but unheard, sigh.

Ignis pointed at Cor, his own eyes, then himself. ‘Watch me.’

Cor nodded, prepared for the next round of charades.

Ignis mimed casting a line out, and put a small frown on his face.

“Noctis.” Cor offered, rolling his hand for Ignis to move on.

Ignis next cupped his hands in front of his face, and peeked around his fingers, before hiding his eyes again.

“Shy? Noctis is… Noctis was shy.”

Ignis’s hands paused halfway to his lap, his expression twisted into something undeniably sympathetic as he registered Cor’s self-correction. The imagine of Ignis with that sad look, and his see-through shoulders made Cor’s stomach swoop low and with a frustrated grunt, he stood and braced himself on the solid walnut railing.

“No statue.”

The rough bark of his voice shook the congregation below him into silence and Iris pointed her gavel up to address him. Like himself, Iris still dressed mainly in black, and as such stood out starkly against the rest of the Council’s softer greys and blues.

“The Honorable Sir Leonis has the floor.” She announced, striking her pitch black podium once. The low din that had begun to flutter after his interruption crashed into silence immediately.

“No statue. The Citadel and those… those plaques you’ve thrown around the whole of Lucis are more than enough.” Cor looked over the Councilmen assembled beneath him and locked eyes with the only one who dared to maintain eye contact. The young man stood and straightened his deep scarlet jacket before turning eyes to those around him.

“Surely, Sir Leonis, you believe it’s reasonable to honor His Maj… King Noctis,  who brought back the Dawn to our… to our utmost ability.” The boy was clearly nervous, if his stutter was anything to go by, and Cor found himself quite pleased that even now he was able to instill a healthy amount of fear in the young and reckless.

“Son, there are thr-... two people in this room who even knew him. That’s the Honorable Mrs. Amicitia and myself.” He gestured to Iris, who was biting her lip to keep her expression neutral.

“Noctis was shy. He hated being the center of attention. By the Six, the boy had his advisor sneak him out of every state function the Citadel ever hosted no later than a half hour in.” He let his eyes drift from Iris to the stenographer who was typing as if his very life were on the line, to the other stunned members of the assembly. For many of them, this was the first time they’d ever heard him speak. And if the Gods were merciful (which they were most decidedly _not_ ) it would be the last.

Cor coughed once, twice, into his hand and he didn’t miss the way that Iris’s eyes snapped to watch as he subtly wiped the residue against a black handkerchief.

“He played his role as the Dawn King because it was his duty to do so, not for fame, or legacy or whatever damn excuse you want to use to fund this little project. He’d have hated a statue… probably those damn plaques as well, so quit wasting time on it. Tear down a block or two in the Unreclaimed District and build a lake, something quiet.  Something peaceful, where people can go to forget this city.” From the corner of his eye, Cor could see  Ignis’s grip on his notebook was white knuckled, but with so many eyes on him, and empowered by his own exasperation, he refused to look back.

“If you want to honor Noctis Lucis Caelum, that’s how you do it. Don’t dishonor his name by reducing him to his sacrifice. He was more than the Dawn King; he was a son, a prince, a brother. A friend...he was a man, and you would all do well to remember it.”  

The young councilmen withered into his seat and Iris softly knocked her gavel against the podium.

“The matter is decided. Fedarious, if you would inform the Reconstruction Committee of the plans for the lake.” Iris’s voice was rock steady as she waved away her page, but even from his distance, Cor could see how watery her eyes were.  Cor turned his back to the scene and locked eyes with Ignis and was a shocked to find that his eyes were glistening as well. His lips were pressed in a thin line as he stood and placed his fist over his heart for a traditional Crownsguard bow.

“Don’t.” Cor chuckled, “It gave me an excuse to put some fear in those kids.”

Ignis straightened and wiped his cheek, gratitude plastered over his face. In the blink of an eye his appearance had shifted, and now he stood as the twenty-two year old he’d once been. His hands however, hidden still beneath silver gloves, were beginning to take on the shimmering translucency that meant that their visit was coming to a close.

“Come now, there’s a stall in the market that makes lemon crepes that are almost as good as yours.” Cor said, shooing Ignis in front of him with a wave of his hand. By then Ignis’s legs had begun to swirl out of existence and by the time they were making their way carefully down City Halls’s steps, only his head and chest remained. Ignis paused and Cor stopped alongside him, allowing a fond smile to soften his features.

“You’re a good man, Ignis. We were lucky to have you.”

Ignis revealed a rare, gentle smile and bowed his head again.

“None of that. Just go and do yourself a favor.”

Ignis lifted both of his eyebrows in curiosity as Cor gestured to the reanimated city before them.  

“Go have some fun. Relax, Gods know you deserve it. Bake a cake and eat it all yourself, or screw with His Royal Pain-in-the-Ass and make him a carrot cake. Take a tour of your city, son. Just don’t waste your time back there. That’s not your job anymore, we have it in hand.”

Ignis appeared to mull over Cor’s request for a moment, eyes alight at the thought of making Noctis a carrot cake as he glanced back at the heavy doors of City Hall. He was almost gone now, and that last thing Cor saw before Ignis completely faded away was another textbook perfect bow.

Cor sighed and shook his head, but found himself somehow pleased to find that some things never change. 


	4. The Dawn King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This, Cor noted, was the Noctis he’d never gotten a chance to meet in life; the older, harder version of the prince he’d sent off with a challenge and a magic sword. The Noctis standing beside him now, blinking at the sunrise as if it were personally offending him, was one he’d grasped in the handful of photos Prompto had taken during that short (too short) time between when Noctis had returned and his death. The one he’d had to pull Regis’s sword from to the soundtrack of Iris and Talcott’s inconsolable tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this one turned out much longer than I thought it would, hence the delay!  
> I hope you like it!  
> Again, thank you so, so much for all of your comments and support. Your feedback is invaluable!

To another man the amount of red in his sink would have been alarming. Cor understood on an abstract level that the blood oozing towards the drain was Not Good, but at this point anything that wasn’t Bad was to be ignored. The dizzy spell that left him kneeling on the dark tile of his kitchen floor with a shattered mug and tea scalded fingers had been Bad, but this? He’d had worse. Hell, he’d given worse.

Cor turned on the sink, allowing himself the luxury of a heavy sigh and twisted his watch’s face back to the top of his wrist.

5:05AM.

Faintly, he heard the sound of tiny feet pounding against pavement and he made his way to his front door to open it before Iris’s triplets could kick it down.

“PawPaw!”

“-PawPaw Cor!”

“-You’re up! Up! Up!”

His legs were immediately assaulted by three foot tall hug machines as Aster and Camillia wrapped themselves around his calves. Holly, as always, had run for him arms extended and ready to be picked up. He obliged her automatically and she curled into his shoulder, one hand clutched around his dog tags and the other in the fabric of his old Crownsguard coat. It was a special occasion after all, one that called for a certain level of formality.

“Girls, what have I told you? Gentle!” Iris’s voice was sharp, and the two around his legs detached with muttered apologies and moved as one unit towards the pair of nine year old who were standing beside Cindy. Sorrel, Iris’s eldest, and Conner, Cindy’s boy, were quick to snatch up the displaced tots. Sorrel barred an uncanny resemblance to Clarus with his buzzcut and warm brown eyes; especially so when he was dressed in all black. His expression however, was playful where Clarus's usually held and edge, and  as he landed a playful bite to Aster’s the girl let out a helpless giggle.  

Conner, dressed to match his friend in all black, his own jacket bearing the dark grey skull of the Crownsguard across his back, had slung Camillia up onto his shoulders and seemed completely unfazed by her death grip in his blonde curls.

“I hear death by toddler isn’t a bad way to go.” Cor chided, running a careful hand through Holly’s mass of curly hair. She made a pleased sound in the back of her throat, not unlike a cat, and settled more heavily against him.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are.” Cindy greeted, handing over a thermos. He took a tentative sniff and smiled when he detected the bitter aroma of his favorite black tea.

“I’m hilarious.” He declared, and turned to pull and lock the door behind him.

Their company then set off, winding their way through the reconstructed neighborhood closest to the Citadel in relative silence. The Third District was as close as one could get to suburbs this close to downtown; each house had its own small yard in front and back. It was where noblemen and higher court members used to reside, Cor included, and he had taken up residence there shortly after reconstruction on the city had begun in earnest. Despite the devastation that had befallen the city proper, his house had made it through relatively unscathed. Besides a few missing windows and the busted front door from desperate looters (He almost felt bad for them. Cor had spent nearly all of his time at the Citadel, the only things to take were silverware and expired tea) it’d been fine.

He’d insisted on repairing it by hand and had sent away the hunter’s apprentices that were invariably sent his way to assist. He found the manual labor oddly soothing, especially when it felt as if they were making no progress elsewhere. The failures of the day stung a bit less when he was able to see physical progress in his home at night.

Around them, streetlamps began to dim before flickering out. Guiding lights along driveways and lamps in windows were extinguished and a glance at the skyline told that the phenomenon was happening across the city. Unconsciously the group shifted closer together, Cor in front, Holly most definitely asleep now, followed by Connor and Sorrel with Cindy, Iris and Talcott, who’d caught up as they approached the plaza leading up to the Citadel, in the rear.

Cor checked his watch: 5:25AM. They were cutting it close this year.

Before them, flooding the streets in front of the Citadel, thousands of people had gathered, all mostly silent, donned in black. Iris turned to her collected family and threw them a warm smile. There was path carved out and lined with a black velvet carpet, ready and waiting for the guests of honor to make their way up to the obsidian podium set at the base of the second set of stairs.

“O.K., I gotta go. I’ll meet you all back here at the fountain right after, OK?” She was distributing kisses now, leaving crimson imprints of her lips on their foreheads. The boys groaned as she did so, attempting to rub off the offending mark, but only succeeded and smearing it further. Once she had confirmation that everyone had their phones, just in case, she gracefully stepped over the black velvet rope and made her way to the podium. It took a moment for the assembled crowd to realize who she was, but when the hush murmur of “That’s Iris Amicitia….” reached the furthest corners of the plaza, every other noise was drowned by thunderous applause.

Holly slept soundly through it all, eased by the Cor’s gentle sway back and forth as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Good morning.” Iris announced, and the crowd fell silent. Talcott tapped Cor’s shoulder and extended his hands towards Holly, wordlessly asking if he was in need of a break, but Cor shook his head. If he cuddled the girl a bit closer, Talcott was kind enough not to notice. In honesty, the girl’s weight was beginning to become a little burdensome, but Cor found that he wasn’t ready to give in to his body’s objections just yet.

“Today we gather to celebrate the Dawn Festival. In a few moments when the sun, stolen from us for ten long years, rises again over the people of Eos, we will watch in silence to honor those who gave their lives to return the light to the world.”  Iris’s voice echoed across the plaza through massive speakers hung from the remains of the stone columns lining the street. She spoke both to the crowd and to a camera, which was broadcasting her image to countless screens both in Insomnia and around Eos.

The Dawn Festival had seemingly been organized before the sun set on that first day. When ambassadors arrived en mass upon hearing the news, they all came bearing the same idea. A festival to celebrate the return of the sun. It was Cor who had given this speech initially; Monica had flat out refused the moment he shifted his eyes to her during the first true organizational meeting.

( _“_ You know I don’t do public speaking.” She’d said, studiously ignoring Cor’s best attempt at puppy dog eyes.

“Don’t even try it, you’re not Prompto, you look ridiculous. Regardless, it needs to be someone recognizable for now. Someone the people can rally around.” Straightforward as always, she’d struck the expression off his face with the same patient precision that she used to she sniped her enemies with.

“Who better than Cor the Immortal?”

The assembled council members had voice enthusiastic agreement, and Cor did his very best not to flinch at the name.)

“We honor the Dawn King, King Noctis Lucis Caelum, the 114th and Final King of Lucis. We honor Ignis Scientia, Prompto Argentum and Gladiolus Amicitia, who gave their lives in the Battle of the Citadel. We honor the hunters who braved the darkness to deliver the citizens of Eos to safety. And we remember those who lost their lives in the Dark, those who did not make it to see the Dawn.”

Before her, the horizon was beginning to lighten and the first hints of pink were beginning to span across the sky. Iris gestured forward and as one, the crowd turned their backs to look forward, up and to the sky.

There was absolute silence as the sun peeked out from behind Insomnia’s skyline, bouncing light through the city streets and over the whole of Eos. They were supposed to be remembering those they had lost and where they were when they felt the sun’s rays for the first time in a decade, but Cor found that he wished he could let those memories fade.

Instead, as always, he could remember the scene as if it had just happened, and he dared not turn back to look at those marble steps. Even through the crowd and the mix of elated and solemn expressions, he knew the only thing he would have been able to see was those three boys, crumpled like marionette dolls at the base of the stairs.

(Cor had known damn well what he was going to find as he’d raced his way through the ruined Insomnian streets. The boy’s path had been carved through the decimated husks of countless MTs and the still smoldering remains of the demons they’d slayed to get to the Citadel.

He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what he was going to find, but Cor’s legs had almost given out when he’d found Gladiolus and Ignis, fingers entwined, in the center of what had to have been the most powerful Killcast he’d ever seen. Part of him thought it was ironic that the glyphs etched into the pavement around them almost matched those on a safe Haven; similar words for such drastically different uses. The concrete around them was cracked and scorched, and there were still MTs scattered about, frozen in death at the moment that the spell, or spells, had exploded against the earth.

A cursory glance had found Prompto slumped on the stairs above them, camera strap still wrapped around his bony wrist. They had never before seemed so much like children, dressed in their father’s clothing as they had at that moment. Cor had felt his chest tighten and his vision narrowed into an almost laser like focus. The sound of Iris’s frantically calling for her brother seemed years away.  Cor’s thoughts had dimmed and suddenly the only thing he'd been able to hear was the pounding of his heart.

It would have been almost easy to think they were asleep if it hadn’t been for all the blood.)  

Against his shoulder, Holly was beginning to stir and grumble, and Cor blinked his eyes clear to see what had disturbed her.

Beside him, appearing from the Dawn as if he were being illuminated with a flashlight, was Noctis. His image started off faint, shimmering like the rest of his retinue had just before they had disappeared, but as the sun continued to rise in the sky, his image grew increasingly opaque.

This, Cor noted, was the Noctis he’d never gotten a chance to meet in life; the older, harder version of the prince he’d sent off with a challenge and a magic sword. The Noctis standing beside him now, blinking at the sunrise as if it were personally offending him, was one he’d grasped in the handful of photos Prompto had taken during that short (too short) time between when Noctis had returned and his death. The one he’d had to pull Regis’s sword from to the soundtrack of Iris and Talcott’s inconsolable tears.

(And Gods if that memory hadn’t haunted him for years. It was the sound more than anything that he couldn’t forget, a wet sucking noise that had spun itself into even greater nightmare fuel due to the knowledge that it had been Regis, _Regis_ , who’d been the one to put it there. Regis, who’d sacrificed his life and his kingdom for his son.

He’d read the prophesy a thousand times, poured over Ignis’s frantic notes. There was no doubt that what was written had come to pass, any thoughts of denial destroyed by the fact that he _knew_ that sword. He’d watched its owner train for decades before, held it in his own hands. The sword that he’d had to wrap his shaking fingers around, had to brace his leg against an armrest to remove, had been the Sword of the Father.

Cor could not count the nights that he’d sat alone on his terrace, watching as the number of lights in the city steadily increased, chased from sleep by his thoughts. Had Regis known what he was doing? Cor prayed, and he was not one to pray to Gods he knew were not listening, that he had been compelled by instinct; that he hadn’t had to feel the sword, _his sword_ , plunge through flesh and bone, hadn’t had to witness the life leech out of his boy and stain the throne below. )

“Uncle Noct.” Holly whispered, and Cor felt her sit up and lean out, hands grabbing for purchase. Holly’s voice seemingly went unnoticed to anyone besides Cor and the King himself. Noctis gifted the child with a rare, bright smile and brought his fingers to his lips. Holly’s face screwed up, clearly preparing to unleash a massive fit, but to Cor’s shock Noctis reached out and gently bopped the toddler on the nose.

Cor blinked, stunned as it appeared as though Holly felt it. She deflated and huffed in disappointment before turning her face to bury it in Cor’s shoulder.

Noctis’s smile faded into a soft smirk and he bowed his head lightly. Still dumbfounded, Cor returned the gesture. Noctis gestured towards the sunrise, then towards the crowd round him before giving Cor a thumbs up.

Cor shrugged.

“Thank you.” Iris’s voice once again resounded through the streets, and Cor and Noctis turned back to look at Iris as she shuffled her notes in front of her. Cor could see Noctis’s lips pulled into a satisfied grin out of the corner of his eye at the picture Iris made residing above them all. Thus far, she’d managed to skillfully avoid taking on too many leadership roles, convinced that she performed better in action as opposed to administration, but Cor had heard whispers that the Council was going to try to nominate her to its head come Fall.  

“With the sun risen, I am happy to announce that the Dawn Festival has officially begun!”

Again, the crowd erupted into applause, but this time Holly was fully awake. Displeased by the noise and from her apparent inability to fall back asleep, thick tears began to slide down her cheeks and a hiccuping sob began to shake her tiny form.

“Come now, none of that.” Cor tried, but her low whine began to escalate as people began to mill around them, eager to peruse the vendor’s stalls just outside of the Memorial Plaza. Luckily, Talcott swooped in and reached out to pluck the toddler from Cor’s arms.

“Who wants some crepes, huh?” He teased, tossing the girl into the air. Sorrel, Conner and the others shouted and eagerly began to follow him through the crowd.

“ PawPaw, you comin?” Conner shouted over his shoulder, Camillia, still stationed on his shoulders, echoed him like a parrot.

“Crepes, PawPaw! PawPaw!”

“I’ll join shortly.” Cor confirmed, waving them away, Cindy hesitated, sharing a meaningful look with Talcott.  “Go on. Buy a lemon for me and a strawberry for Iris.”

Cindy nodded once, deceivingly perceptive of his desire to be left alone, and guided a visibly reluctant Talcott away with a gentle touch to his elbow. Holly had once again settled and had draped herself over Talcott’s shoulder to stare at Cor and Noctis behind his back.

Noctis, watching the exchange with obvious interest, returned Holly’s wave as they disappeared into the throng, but as his gaze turned to Cor, his expression shifted into something more suspicious. The King crossed his arms and pulled himself up to his full height, and for a moment, Cor was struck by how much the boy looked like Regis.

“You look just like your father.” Cor admitted. Noctis narrowed his eyes and between one blink and the next, shifted his appearance to his younger, twenty year old self. Gone was his formal attire, replaced instead with his fatigues, with that over gelled hairstyle which gave his scowl an even more petulant edge.

Noctis waved his comments off and pointed roughly at Cor, then pointed at his own chest before miming a cough. Cor, who had been feeling the itch of one since halfway through the sunrise, found himself clearing his throat.

“What of it?”

Noctis’s eyes narrowed to slits and mimicked opening a bottle, shaking it, and popping a pill.

“Prompto is far better at charades than you, Noctis.”

Noctis rolled his eyes and crossed his arms tightly across his chest as if refusing to repeat himself.

“I’m taking my medicine, your Majesty. But it can’t fix everything.” Cor admitted, turning his eyes from the King to the rapidly thinning crowd. With a heavy sigh, he stood and tilted his head to indicate that Noctis was to follow him.

Noctis fell in line with him as Cor worked his way against the tide and into a small alley that wove its way behind the Citadel. Here, carved from the marble base of the stairs, was an unassuming door with a distinctive keyhole.

Cor fumbled through his pocket for a moment, before locating a large skeleton key; the same key in fact, that he had once gifted to the King that currently stood silently beside him.

The door to the royal tomb swung open silently, and Cor stepped inside, allowing the specter to follow in behind him before closing the door.

Noctis’s official royal tomb was a carbon copy of the rest of his line’s. Smooth sandstone, carved images of shield wielding guards lined the walls  and the empty sepulchre were on par with traditional Lucian tombs. Except of course, the face carved on the sarcophagus was that of Noctis and none other.

Even as Cor approached and gently placed his offering of sylleblossoms upon the statue’s chest, he did not look at its face, both out of respect for his own nightmares and for the real thing (Ignis’s visit had convinced him that he was not, in fact, hallucinating) waiting respectfully behind him.

“They’ve planted these everywhere for you." Cor commented, waving the previous year's wrinkled stems towards the ghost. "Monica, Cindy, Iris, Talcott and I all got some from the Tenebrean ambassadors. I’m taking care of Monica’s now. I suspect that Iris will take care of them all eventually.” Cor turned his back to the stone version of his King and smiled softly at Noctis’s troubled expression.

“Be at peace, Noctis. These are things that you and yours need not concern yourselves with.” Cor soothed, but Noctis’s face remained shuttered. His image was rapidly switching from his older self to the younger, but as he began to gesture his formed settled again into his twenty year old self.

Noctis pointed at Cor and then himself before making a gesture to indicate someone taller than them both. At Cor’s raised eyebrow, he pointed down to his knee and made a pained face before rubbing at it in a gesture he’d watched a thousand times.

“Regis? Your father?” Cor guessed, and Noctis nodded. He pointed again at Cor and then made a worried face, complete with a pouting lip and heavily wrinkled brow.

“Worried? Your father is worried?”

Noctis nodded again and frowned at Cor, clearly displeased.

“Is… is he there? Have you met with him?” Cor choked. A brief look of confusion passed over the prince's features as he nodded and threw his hand out as if to say, ‘Duh.’ Cor let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and smiled as a bundle of stress he hadn’t known he’d been carrying dissolved from his shoulders.

“That is good to hear. Tell him there’s nothing to worry about; that goes for you as well. I’d hoped that seeing the Dawn Festival would make that clear as well.”

Noctis shrugged but the way he grabbed at the back of his neck was a clear indication that he was uncomfortable.

“Have you attended the other festivals then?”

Noctis nodded, shyly smiling from beneath his fringe.

“Good. That’s… that’s good. You were… _are_ beloved here, Noctis. Not a day goes by where the people of Eos don’t think of you and what you sacrificed for them.” Cor said.

Noctis ducked his head between his shoulders and nodded, a habit Cor recognized from bygone days. Cor could distinctly remember a young prince kicking at the ground in tiny dress shoes, overwhelmed with the compliments that foreign dignitaries would shower him with at dinner parties and balls. Usually it had been Ignis or Gladiolus who’d swooped in to escort their friend from prying eyes, but Cor could clearly remember the grateful looks that had been shot his way when he’d been the one to escort the prince from the cooing voices  and overtly political questions.

“Come along now,” Cor said, leading his way out of the crypt. “The festival has only just begun, and Iris is waiting.”

Noctis nodded, but when Cor glanced towards the prince, he found he had shifted back to that of his older form.

His legs had already disappeared.

“Not sticking around for the show?” Cor asked, but Noctis shrugged. He let out a massive yawn before carefully mouthing, ‘Can’t. Help. It.’

“I suspected as much.” Cor mused. He spotted Iris sitting against the fountain in the center of the plaza, her nose buried in her phone. In his pocket, he felt his own phone buzz and smiled at Noctis as his form began to drift away.

“I’ll give you the same advice I gave Ignis. Rest, Noctis. Your duty to Eos is done. You did well with the hand you were dealt, in all of its unfairness. Take a break, go fishing, spend time the time with your father that was stolen from you. You’ve done us all proud. You deserve that much.”

Noctis again scratched at the back of his neck, but he gifted Cor with a warm smile regardless. Again, he mimed for Cor to take his medication, to which Cor could only roll his eyes, before he attempted a new gesture. Like Prompto had done only weeks ago, he gestured to everything around him with his pointer fingers up before pausing, obviously unsure of how to proceed. Then, pointed at his wrist and then pointed to Cor.

“Time me?”

Noctis heaved a visible sigh and shook his head and pointed again at his wrist. Noctis had never been one for watches, but Cor still guessed,

“Watch me?”

Another aggressive shake of his head.

“Wait... Waiting for me?”

Noctis nodded, apparently exhausted with their game.

“You’re-”

Noctis made his grand gesture again, point towards everything around him. When Cor only stared, Noctis began to make a familiar series of gestures. He pushed invisible glasses to the top of his nose, flexed nonexistent muscles and then snapped a photo on a phantom camera.

“You all are waiting for me.”

Noctis nodded again, but he was rapidly fading, his imaged distorted by a veil Cor could not see.  

“I’ll take your word for it. Until next we meet, Your Majesty.”

Noctis nodded once before disappearing completely in a familiar shower of crystalline light. 

Iris looked up sharply as Cor approached, a frown etched on her lips.

“Where did you go? You had us all worried.” She scolded, the fact that she was more than half his age seemingly forgotten.

Cor turned to cough into the crook of his arm. He resolutely did not look at the dark patch that his hacking left behind.  

“I had a nice chat with the King.”

Iris’s eyes went soft, and she looked over his shoulder towards the alley where she knew the Royal Tomb was hidden.

“We could go to Galdin Quay, if you’d like. Visit them all for real. I’m sure the girls wouldn’t mind the trip the beach at least.” Iris linked her arm through Cor’s to give him the help he needed, but wasn’t ever going to ask for.

“P- Perhaps this weekend.” He’d wheezed, taken aback by the sudden lack of air making it into his lungs. He tried for a deep breath, but only managed to succeed in triggering a series of brutal coughs. Like always, they felt as if there were glass scratching at his lungs, but he found that he was unable to brush away the pain. 

Iris was calling him, but her voice sounded faint. Panicked. And that, most of all, was unacceptable. Especially not during the Dawn Festival, when she still had people to greet and speeches to give. He forced the pinprick of his vision to focus on her face and let his lips tip to a frown at the tears he saw there. Clarus would be furious with him.

But as the darkness overtook his vision, he figured that was problem he’d deal with later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else spend a lot of time thinking about who found them all?  
> (I, obviously, am in the camp that they all died.)


	5. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hmm…” It was Cor’s turn now to shift his gaze away and as he shot a glance down the pier towards the bait shack, he was momentarily stunned by the image of Cid Sophiar himself waltzing along the sun bleached pier as if he owned it. 
> 
> Speak of the devil, indeed. 
> 
> “He was grumpy.” Cor said immediately, eyes trained on the man now standing over him. The ghost immediately flicked him off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this one turned out WAAYY longer than I thought it would.
> 
> In addition, if anyone was wondering, my other two stories 'The Last Resort' and 'The Guardian of All of Eos' take place in the same universe/timeline as this one. :D

“Mom said you’re grounded."

  1. Cor hadn’t even blinked his eyes open before he heard Sorrel speaking from somewhere to his right. He could smell fresh black tea, and found that he’d been shifted until he was sitting up, propped against what must have been a few members of Iris’s decorative throw pillow collection.



“Does she now.” Cor opened his eyes, now fully remembering where he was and turned his gaze to the boy sitting next to his bed. He was somewhat impressed with the his ability to tell he was awake, but he _was_ Iris’s child.

Sorrel gestured to the bright pink mug decorated with three tiny purple handprints sitting on the dark bedside table. Cor took his mug, a gift from Iris’s triplets for his last birthday, with a grateful nod of his head and took a moment to strategize.

He’d collapsed at the Dawn Festival and had woken up disorientated and volatile in Insomnia General Hospital to a sea of displeased and tearful faces. His stern faced doctor had informed him that his disease had metastasized and indefinite admission was recommended with same even tone as she would have commented on the weather.

Cor had refused.

Clarus would have been immensely proud of the way Iris controlled herself in that private suite, remaining stoic despite the lightning in her eyes. She kept her gaze on Cor throughout his argument with his doctor, watching as the man got increasingly irate.

(“Sir Leonis, please.” His doctor had pleaded, her hands firmly planted in her pockets. He could see her clenching and unclenching her fists from around the collection of pens and lab tape there, unwilling to allow herself to be the one to let Cor the Immortal die.

“Ma'am, I don’t want to have to keep repeating mysel...myself. We both know I don’t have the breath for it- Iris. Iris, explain to Dr.-” By this point, Cor had maneuvered himself into a seated position, knowing that an attempt to stand would be immediately met with four sets of hands shoving him back down.

The situation was unprecedented. Normally, Cor took advantage of his reputation and standing to waltz in and out of places as he pleased. But now? He was going to have to attempt a strategy he usually failed at; talking his way out.

“I’ll take him.”

The room had turned to Iris, who’d stepped forward to place a trembling hand on the guardrail of the shitty excuse of a bed that they’d stuck him in. Silence had reigned for a moment, as Talcott, the doctor and the horrified nurse had glanced back and forth between them. It appeared that Cor would refuse this as well for a few tense moments, but then he deflated, a good enough soldier to recognize defeat before a battle began. )

“Yep.” Sorrel said, his amusement evident in the way he popped the ‘p.’ “She said that the doctor said that whiskey was off limits.”

Cor grunted and swung his legs around to stand. He’d been lazing about for two days already, and he was beginning to get stir-crazy.

“She also said that you weren’t allowed to get out of bed.” Sorrel added, he tilted his entire body to the right, and Cor followed the boy’s gaze to the sharp pair of eyes and tall dark ponytail glaring from just above the landing that lead to his bedroom. A single footstep echoed threateningly up the short flight of stairs separating them, and Iris’s face came fully into view.

Cor slipped his feet back under the covers.

Iris’s expression narrowed as she pointed her middle and pointer fingers at her eyes before turning them to Cor. ‘I’m watching you.’ She shifted her fingers over to Sorrel who let out a scoff of his own and threw his hands in the air in exasperation. Iris’s shook her fingers at her son again, before turning to disappear down the stairs.

“Why did _I_ get that look?” He demanded. Cor lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug.

“She knows a co-conspirator when she sees one. I taught her well.” Sorrel rolled his eyes at his grandfather before leaning forward to brace his hands on the solid black bedspread. Behind the recliner that had been pulled up next to the bed, the tall narrow windows had been left open, letting the warm breeze of mid-morning waft the sound of the triples squealing in the front yard into the room.

“Well, she did say that if we… I mean, you. If _you_ were good, that we could all go spend the weekend at Galdin Quay.” Sorrel drawled. His implication was clear, and Cor nodded once with a heavy, overdramatic sigh.

“Deal.”

Which is how several days later, Cor Leonis found himself once again dangling his feet in the crystal clear waters off the old pier and leaning against Noctis’s ostentatious plaque at Galidn Quay.

He was proudly sporting bright yellow chocobo themed sunglasses, gifted at the last minute by the triples to keep the sun from his tired blue eyes. The journey had been unexpectedly exhausting, and he’d volunteered to watch over Sorrel and Conner as they tried their hand at fishing while Cindy, Talcott and Iris got the triplets settled in their rooms simply to avoid having to walk all the way to the resort.

“I heard Uncle Noctis was really good at fishing.” Conner said. He was seated beside Cor, leaning back on his hands to watch his cousin fish from under a replica of Cid’s Hammerhead baseball cap. Cindy had braided his hair to his scalp at his request, (“Like Nyx Ulric!” He’d explained, pointing at the commemorative comic book cover he’d picked up at the Dawn Festival. Cor had watched Cindy’s eyes widen as the thought of taming her son’s wild curls, but she’d smiled and kissed his forehead regardless and did her very best to replicate the hero’s hairstyle), so his hat fit snugly on his head, with only the twin tales of his braids visible at the nape of his neck.

“He was an expert.” Cor confirmed, watching as Sorrel lead what appeared to be a trevally back and forth across the water. His eyes were narrowed under his own hat, black and bearing a Crownsguard skull, apparently completely focused on the task.

“Mom said you were friends with King Regis and Aunt Cindy’s dad.” Sorrel added, the rest of his question was stolen however, as the fish leaped from the water.  Cor waited for Conner’s excited shouts of encouragement to settle before he answered.

“I was a member of King Regis’s Crownsguard, along with Cid.” Cor was unsure if he was supposed to correct the boy, since Cid was actually Cindy’s grandfather, but he figured it wasn’t really his place.

“What was PawPaw Cid like?” Conner shifted his attention from the water and brought his knees up to rest his chin against them. His mossy orbs momentarily shifted back to what he knew to be his cousin as the other boy grumbled under his breath about his line’s quality.

“Hmm…” It was Cor’s turn now to shift his gaze away and as he shot a glance down the pier towards the bait shack, he was momentarily stunned by the image of Cid Sophiar himself waltzing along the sunbleached pier as if he owned it.

Speak of the devil, indeed.

He was young, roughly the age he’d been when they’d set out on Regis’s ill fated trip to Accordo, and he walked tall, unburdened by age or illness.

“He was grumpy.” Cor said immediately, eyes trained on the man now standing over him. Cid immediately flicked him off. Cor noticed that his ghost didn’t cast a shadow. He was smirking up at Cid, but he was grateful that his borrowed sunglasses hid his eyes from view as Cid turned an obvious and critical eye to the plastic tubes looped around his eyes and tiny black box that sat just behind his head. Iris had presented him with the compact oxygen generator before they’d even left the hospital, and she squawked like an angry eagle when she spotted him subtly trying to lose it. It worked well enough; easing the constant pressure in his chest, but its constant flow of cool oxygen diluted the smell of the sea.

He’d remove if he hadn’t known that Sorrel would have immediately ratted him out in favor of his mother’s Tenebrean tarts.

“I was only fifteen when I climbed into the Regalia on the first day of that trip, and he never let me forget it.” Cor answered at last and relished in the sound of confusion that popped from both boy’s mouths.

Cid’s expression was markedly unimpressed as he silently settled down to sit cross legged beside Cor, his gaze flickering between his great grandson and Sorrel. Cor smirked and subtly nodded his head towards Conner’s stunned expression.

“ _Fifteen_? I? How did you get to go?” He stuttered. He reached out and punched Sorrel in the back of his knee, causing the boy to yelp and nearly drop his pole.

“I’m listening! Gods, Con!” Sorrel snapped, aggressively reeling in his catch.

“I was a very good soldier.” Cor offered. And it was the truth; a shined up version of it, but the truth nonetheless.

“Cid knew exactly how to keep everyone in line. How to motivate you to play to your strengths. He was sharp, perceptive. Like how your mom always knows when you want to be left alone and when what you really want is her company.” Cor gestured to Conner, who was eating up the Marshall’s words with a spoon. The child was unaware of the warm, affection look Cid was giving him. The way his mouth, unlined in his youth, had curled up around the edges in an unguarded, honest grin.

Conner nodded his head rapidly, and Cor was immediately reminded of Prompto’s enthusiastic movements on the same pier weeks ago.

“Well, that’s where she got it from.”

“Mamma has one of his old pistols hung up in the shop.” Conner said, closing a single eye to peer down an invisible scope.

“I bet, Cid was a fan of them. All machines really, he also had a drill he liked to use, he’d modified it himself-”

“Like Uncle Noctis’s sword!” Conner interrupted, and Cor couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. He rarely spoke about Cid, as most people were more interested in Noctis and Regis. Despite the fact that the man in question was sitting beside him, Cor found that his tongue was loose.

“Yes, like half of things outside of Insomnia, really. But the drill could go straight through bone and-”

“And it’s lunchtime, ha ha!” Cindy’s cowboy boot came down hard on the wood of the pier, cutting off the rest of what would have been a description of destruction that was perhaps a little much for such young ears. Cid stood, opening his mouth in an unheard groan before moving to stand beside his granddaughter. He lifted the right side of his mouth into a smirk before motioning for Cor to get up.

The boys shot off like rockets, fishing pole abandoned in favor of the picnic that Talcott had set up on the beach. Iris sat beside him and nervously extended one hand, attempting to slow the ravenous pair before they covered the spread in sand.

Cindy stepped forward and reached out to gently help Cor get to his feet, tsk-ing at him as they began to make their way towards the rest of the family.

“Keep the war stories PG, would ya? Conner likes to act tough as all get-out but he’s got a gooey inside; he gets nightmares somethin’ fierce.” She was shooting for strict, but her tone was too warm, softened by the way the once hardened soldier leaned his weight against her.

The rest of the day passed by pleasantly and Cor was happy to spend most of it propped in a beach chair beneath a bright red umbrella. Iris and Cindy kept close, their loungers just an arm's length away from his, leaving Talcott to chase the toddlers up and down the white sand, while the boys ping-ponged between begging for stories and splashing amongst the small waves.

All the while, Cid remained by Cor’s side, his only efforts at communication the  occasional smirk and soundless sigh. It was the longest any of them had stayed, but Cor found himself comforted by his company. For the most part, Cid lounged about on his back, one leg hooked over the other to bounce along to some silent melody, seemingly staring at the sliver of sky between where Cor’s red umbrella ended and Cindy’s yellow one started. However every time Cor opened his eyes from another backbreaking coughing attack, Cid was sitting up and fixing him with a particular, sympathetic expression. Cor wanted to reach out to reassure him, but speaking aloud to a dead man would likely have given off the wrong impression to his companions.

The night came softly and a bit too swiftly for Cor’s liking, the sunset a watercolor of vivid oranges, purples and reds.  He found he couldn’t take his eyes off it. The boys were still playing in the sand, the sunset casting their image into shadow. They were play fighting now, fencing back and forth  across the beach, bare feet kicking up the sand in a great cloud.

For a moment, all Cor could see was Clarus and Regis in those two tiny figures, sparring for the thousandth time while Weskham attempted to cook something over the campfire just up the beach.

“We have reservations, you ingrates, let’s go!” Iris called from down the beach, clapping her hands to call them all. The boys broke apart and shot towards her with an excited shout, and the illusion was shattered. Cor finally turned his eyes away from the waves and instead met Cid’s steady, understanding gaze.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it.”

Cindy was shaking out their towels downwind, leaving the old man to his ghost.

“I… I sometimes wish that we’d gotten more time. All of us. Can you imagine Regis and Noctis here? Together? I bet Aulea would have made those little bonbons he liked so much, with the hazelnuts. Gods, can you imagine what Noctis and Lunafrey’s kids would have looked like? Raven haired, probably.” Cor did not look at Cid, he kept his eyes on the final, soft rays of the sun, knowing exactly the expression that the mechanic would have given him. It would have been that same, solemn stare he’d given on their road trip, after it’d all gone to hell.

(He’d hidden away after the skirmish, leaving Weskham and Cid to deal with Regis and all of his righteous fury. Not too far, of course, because their enemy could be anywhere at this point, just out in the parking lot so he could rest in peace, leaning against the hood of the Regalia, until his trembling legs forced him to sit.

Cid had approached noisily, allowing his pistol to rattle in its leather harness. He’d flicked the tab open that usually secured it then, giving Cor time to collect himself.

He told himself didn’t need it.

“Leonis, if you don’t let it out you’re gonna shake yourself apart. Then we’ll be a man down in what’s likely enemy territory.”  Cor had let his fingers curl into fists, and had turned to Cid expecting the man to be bearing his usual blase expression. He’d been prepared to punch it off his face, to let the familiar pattern of violence still the anxious shaking of his leg.

Instead, Cid’s expression had been even, his lips pulled into a single thin line. But the understanding in his eyes, without a hint of the sympathy that would have triggered him to lash out, caught him off guard enough to wrench a single, dry sob from his throat.

Cor had killed countless demons, had faced off against the Empire's Gods forsaken mechanical monstrosities time and time again. But when his katana had cut clean and true through the empire’s assassins, the ultra sharp blade stuttering against bone, blood weeping from the wound all the way to the hilt….

“I-” Cor’s throat had clicked shut, but Cid sat patiently, his back braced against the car’s grill in an unconscious mirror of Cor’s position. “It was the first time.”

Cid said nothing, only nodding. Cor was thankful that it was him, not Regis who’d found him. He liked the prince well enough, but he defaulted to his court training when he was stressed and the last thing Cor wanted was an empty platitude.

“You wanna spar? I think ole’ Weskham’s fixin to let Regis kick the crap outta him.” Cid stood after a few long minutes with an over dramatic groan before offering Cor his hand.

He’d never been more grateful for the subsequent ass kicking.)

“It’s unfair that we had to sacrifice one future in order to save another.” Cor allowed himself a deep sigh, ignoring the uncomfortable pull it caused in his chest and eased himself upright.

Cindy arrived by his side presently, towels safely tucked away in her enormous tote and looped her arm through his.

“You looked lost in thought there, everything alright?” She asked, nodding politely to the attendants who passed them to collect their umbrellas.  Cid trailed along on Cindy’s other side, eyes on the sea beneath the bridge leading to the resort’s main building.

“No need to worry.” Cor assured, patting her hand. “I was just reminiscing. Cid was… really something. It was good to talk about him again.”

“I have to be honest,” Cindy laughed, “I didn’t know y’all were that close. It was nice to hear those stories today, the boys really loved it.”

Cor paused and gently pulled Cindy to stop beside him.

“I’m sorry that I was unable to express how much he meant to me to him while he was here.” Cor placed both of his hands on top of Cindy’s, his grip firm and comforting when her fingers began to shake against his arm.

“He was a good man, and he raised you to be an even better person. He cracked me open, and the Six knows it hurt at times, but he helped me connect... to grow when I was bound and determined to survive, instead of live.” Cid kept his back turned, but he’d rounded his shoulders in a way that Cor had never seen before.  “He saved us both, and I’ll never be able to thank him for it.”

“Give him a little credit,” Cindy’s eyes were impossibly bright as she used a shaky hand to dab away her tears, “He knew.”

Cor allowed her to lead him again down the walkway, and didn’t fail to catch the way Cid grabbed at the bill of his cap before he turned to follow them.

“I certainly hope so.”

 

* * *

 

 

Dinner was a quieter affair than usual. The staff had been kind enough to allow the party to sit VIP on the round tables overlooking the small lighthouse, meaning that they were tucked away from the rest of the evening's patrons. The girls were mostly entertained between the resort supplied coloring books and their attempts at abstract art with their food, and the boys were once again enthralled with Cor’s stories of adventure and peril with both the famed King Regis and with the Dawn King. But with Cid still floating around (he had moved to sit on the couches behind their table, looking over Cor’s shoulder at the gathering) Cor found that he stuck to tales of his younger days.

“PawPaw Cid sounded like a badass!” Sorrel exclaimed.

“Language!”  Conner openly laughed as Talcott, Iris and Cindy automatically scolded the boy in unison, but Cor let out a breathless laugh in surprise. It brought smiles to the entire table until the laughter transitioned smoothly into a wheeze. Hiding his mouth behind his elbow, he deftly used his other hand to fold his napkin over to hide the blood the cough had brought with it.

The smiles dripped from the table in uncomfortable silence. Conner, again reminding Cor of the uncle he never got to meet, sat up straighter to snatch another hunk of bread from the center of the table.

“Do… do you think PawPaw Cid would have liked us?” He asked.

Cor watched Cid snap to attention in the reflection of the balcony’s chrome railing, physically echoing the shock that settled against the adult’s features.

“He would have loved you as much as I do.” Cor replied, his gaze focused on removing a wayward bone from his roasted trevally.

When the silence stretched on, Cor looked up to find the table in various stages of distress. Talcott had his lip pulled firmly between his teeth, an expression Cor recognized from the 8 year old version of the boy as his best at holding back tears. Cindy of course, had no such reservations, and was wiping away a tear with the back of her finger. Iris was staring into the distance just over Holly’s shoulder, wiping impatiently at her eyes and the boys were looking back and forth between the four adults in silent confusion.

The triplets, as always, were blissfully unaware.

“What?” Cor glanced at Conner and Sorrel, but the two raised their hands in twin expressions of helplessness.

“You… you’ve never really said it before.” Talcott explained, pinning Cor with a watery smile. “I mean, we…we know it. I think you just caught us off guard is all.”

Cor blinked and made a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat.

“I love you.” He said, laying down his silverware to gesture to the entire table. “I love all of you."

“We love you too PawPaw Cor!” Sorrel beamed. Conner nodded as well and smiled through a mouthful of bread. “Yeah! We love you!”

“I’m sorry if that was ever unclear.” Cor continued, he’d reached out to ruffle Sorrel’s peach fuzz and smiled warmly at the red rimmed eyes of his family.

“Never.” Cindy said, sitting up to remove a butter knife that Aster had somehow gotten a hold of.

“There was never a doubt.” Iris finished, finally turning her eyes from the sea to look at Cor.  

“Good.” Cor smiled, “Good. Now, I think I’m going to head back to the rooms and take a breather before dessert comes.”

Cor stood with a small effort among the cries of delight from the children and looked at those assembled below him.

“I love you.” He said, pressing a kiss to a stunned Talcott’s temple.

“I love you.” He said, pressing a kiss to the top of Cindy’s head.

“I love you.” He said, pressing his lips to Iris's cheek.

He moved around the table then, pressing kisses to the triplet’s cheeks to a chorus of giggles, and to the foreheads of both of the boys, all the while repeating the words he never thought he’d get to say.

He felt, rather than saw, Cid following him as he slowly made his way down to their rooms and out of the sliding glass doors to the wide patio overlooking the quay. He stopped on the way out, and removed his oxygen generator, dropping it on his bed, desirous of the smell of the salt on the evening breeze.

Cor observed the pair of deck chairs before walking over to pull one closer to the other so that the armrests were just overlapping. He settled himself in one and smiled as Cid leaned back in the other. The ghost raised an eyebrow at Cor gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder towards where the others were finishing dinner.

“What? It’s important.” Cor began, but he was interrupted by another fit of body wracking coughs. He curled in on himself, head bent between his knees, and struggled to breath through dizziness that followed. As he struggled to regain his breath, unsure if returning to his reclined position was a good idea, he felt the unmistakable warmth of a hand rubbing small circles into his back.

Cor glanced up, fully expecting to find that Iris had followed him out, but was shocked to find that it was Cid standing over him. His eyes were soft despite the quirk of his lips, and Cor felt himself relaxing as a cool, comforting numbing sensation blossomed in his chest. It felt not unlike the minty tingle of an elixir.

“That’s a first.” He observed, sitting back as Cid returned to his seat. “The others couldn’t touch me.”

Cid shrugged and turned his eyes to the waves.

There was thunderstorm on the horizon, too far away to be heard. It probably wouldn’t make landfall, but Cor found that watching the lightning dance within the dark swell of the clouds seemed to be lulling him to sleep.

“Thank you for today.” Cor said, fighting how heavy his eyelids had become. “It… I… I never thought I’d get to see you again. To thank you for… everything, really.”

Cid was shaking his head and Cor surprised to find that the young man’s eyes appeared to be wet in the moonlight. 

“I meant what I said earlier, what I told Cindy. You saved me. You and Clarus? You passed your family down to me; I never imagined I’d have that.” Sleep’s incessant pull was forcing him to rush his words, and he frowned with half lidded eyes at the ghost of his first true friend. He wanted to get this right.

“I.. I never thought I’d be taking care of fucking sylleblossoms, or learn to change a diaper, or make butterscotch pancakes. I never thought I’d need to know the difference between an Accordo twist and a fishtail braid. I never thought I’d have to… have to pull Regis’s sword from his son’s fuckin chest.”

Cid was sitting up again, and he’d turned to rest his hand on Cor’s arm.  

“Bury _you_ . Bury.. Bury _everyone_ … I left so many things unsaid to so many people. I won’t make that mistake again. So it’s _important_ , it’s important that they know… that you know, how much I love you. You’re my brother, Cid Sophiar, and I miss the hell out of you.”

Cid’s grip was tight on his arm now, but Cor’s eyes had slipped closed against his will. He heaved a thin sigh and found he didn’t even have the energy to shake his head at his inability to stay awake. Getting old _sucked_.

Cor attempted to mutter something else, but as he gave in to his sudden exhaustion, the words were lost to the wind, and for the first time all day, there was no one there to hear it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. According to the Wiki and from what I could find of the Ultimania, Cor was FIFTEEN. FIFTEEN when he went on Regis's road trip. I'm thinking it's a continuity error, but the thought of a 15-year old military prodigy was just TOO GOOD too pass up. 
> 
> Please feel free to comment below, your feedback gives me life.


	6. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I always knew it would come to this, Cor Leonis stealing our wives.” 
> 
> Cor’s head shot up as he locked eyes with an entirely too self-satisfied Regis Lucis Caelum. There was a smirk on his thirty year old lips, the same smirk he’d seen on his son, as he jabbed an elbow into Clarus Amicitia’s ribs. The Shield, as always, had a deep line of worry between his dark eyebrows, as if he were closely examining whatever lay in front of it. But Cor knew he was the only one currently refusing to ignore the fact that the former Marshall was obviously recovering from a panic attack in the embrace of his queens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy... Holy cow, y'all.  
> We did it!  
> Thank you all so, so much for sticking with me through this journey! This was my first, multi-chapter fic and I wouldn't have been able (or nearly as motivated) to do it without your amazing comments and support! 
> 
> Enjoy!

When Cor awoke feeling as refreshed as he had in decades, devoid of his usual, if not momentary, feeling of resignation, he was aware on a soul deep level that something was fundamentally different. It wasn’t bad, he didn’t feel as if he was in danger, something was just… off. As he always did upon waking, he remained perfectly still and silent with his eyes closed, feigning sleep as he took stock of his surroundings through the rest of his senses.  

His first clue of some basal change was the fact that the sun was shining warmly on his face. This didn’t make sense as there was no possible scenario in which Iris would have allowed him to spend the night on a deck chair outside their rooms in Galdin Quay. As she had done in the past, she would have woken him by calling his name, then gently shaking his shoulder before ordering him inside.

Next, the air smelled distinctly of flowers, almost sickeningly so; but they were of the variety that he hadn’t assaulted his nostrils in over thirty years. It was the smell of the great pink bush that Aulea had imported from Accordo to plant in the smallest of the Citadel's grand gardens; the same garden where Regis later built Noctis’s fishing pond. The bush had quickly grown to cover most of the north corner of the garden, suffocating all of the other plants around it; but Aulea had forbidden anyone from trimming it. Every year it would shed enough deep pink petals to completely cover the pond and the rest would dance up and down the breezeways like some sort of horrible romcom.

Finally, and most obviously, was the fact that he could hear the late Queen Aulea Lucis Caelum’s voice from above him, as bright and silvery as the day he’d first met her.

“Well, I suppose we should go fetch the boys.” She was saying. She sounded excited, “Cid was saying he’d be here any minute.”

“Aulea.” Said another, and Cor surprised himself by remembering exactly how Odessa Amicitia’s accent elongated her vowels.

He was vaguely aware that there were tears leaking from the corners of his eyes and dripping down his neck, but then two small hands settled against his cheeks to wipe them away.

“Come now, Kitty Cat, let’s see those baby blues.” Cor’s chest tightened at the nickname and he only trusted himself to take in a single, stuttering breath.

(She’d thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever said when she’d first connected the dots, daintily dabbing tears of mirth from her eyes.

“Get it? Leonis? Lion? You’re essentially a cat anyway!” She’d burst into helpless giggles again, leaning her weight fully against Regis who was staring at her as if she’d just hung the moon.

And Cor as looked between his prince and his bride-to-be he found he didn’t hate the nickname.)

“Is… Is this… Am I dreaming?” It was posed as a question, but the desperation underlining his words was palpable. He’d had this dream before, and countless others like it. He would awaken somewhere and find that everyone was there and whole and miraculously, wondrously alive. He fell for it every time, letting himself becoming unspeakably happy, ready to surrender to an eternity of chest burning euphoria, before he would awaken alone to a reconstructed world and remember.

“No. It’s… this is real.” Odessa’s voice moved and he felt the bench shift as she sat beside him.

Cor opened his eyes, blinking through the brightness of the morning and for perhaps the first time in his life, didn’t bother to stifle the sob that ripped itself from his throat the the sight of Aulea standing over him, alive and whole. She couldn’t have been any older than twenty five, younger than she’d been on their first meeting, but her cobalt eyes, the same color she’d passed on to her son, glistened with sympathetic tears. Her auburn hair was twisted up and away from her face (an Accordo twist, his mind supplied), and she wore her Lucian crown still, a golden match to Regis’s single silver horn, placed just over her right ear.

“Thank _Etro_.”Cor had never felt such relief; never had a hope of that magnitude pay off in his favor. He brought one hand up, covering his eyes and shook apart under the weight of his relief and, as he came to terms with the truth, shame.

“It’s alright.” Aulea soothed, crouching to grip the man’s knees as he doubled over, unable to look at his Queen. “I promise it’s wonderful here. We've been waiting for you for so long, Cor. You stubborn old man. Just wait until Regis-”

“I’m so sorry, Aulea, Odessa!”  Cor’s sudden explosive apology stunned both women into silence, shocked by the abject misery that drenched his words.

“I let them die,” He gasped, “I let _all of them_ die. You entrusted them to me and I.. I-”

Aulea stood and settled on the bench on Cor’s other side. Sandwiching him between the mothers of his greatest failures. Odessa met Aulea's eyes over Cor’s back, face crumpled with pity. They had greeted many on upon their arrival and while everyone’s reactions differed, it was always difficult to comfort those lost to sorrow.

(Later, Odessa would offer Cor a tall glass of his favorite Atlassian whiskey and explain that his reaction was nothing compared to how Regis had just... _broken_ when he first laid eyes on Aulea.)

“Oh Cor, you've never _let_ anything happen your entire life.” Odessa said, rubbing random patterns into the hair at the nape of his neck. He recognized the technique from when she used soothed a restless Clarus after particularly stressful skirmishes. But he didn’t deserve the comfort, not after he’d let their sons march off to their deaths, and he pushed his head further between his knees, vaguely aware that his uneven, desperate breaths didn’t quite seem to be filling his lungs. He pushed his hands onto his head to tangle them in his hair and realized that he actually _had_ enough hair to grip.

“I should have been there.” And Gods if his voice hadn’t risen an octave as well. “I could have been there but I..”

“You did everything you could. There’s nothing to forgive. You gave our boys a fighting chance, taught Iris to survive.” Aulea was rubbing small circles into the curve of his back, her voice pitched low as if she were speaking to a frightened animal. “We should be the one thanking you.”

“Please don’t.” He begged, “Besides, Iris is going to be pissed. Urgh, I died at Galdin fucking Quay.” A horrifying thought brought another hiccuping sob through him.  “Gods, _the kids were there!_ ”

“It’ll be alright, I swear it. There’s nothing you can do about it now.” Aulea said.

“There you are.” Odessa scolded, and her ministrations in his hair turned to circles. (He realized somewhere in the back of his mind, that he hadn’t had hair this long since he was 15. And _of course_ that’s the form he would slip into at the first sign of distress.)

“I always knew it would come to this, Cor Leonis stealing our wives.”  

Cor’s head shot up as he locked eyes with an entirely too self-satisfied Regis Lucis Caelum. There was a smirk on his thirty year old lips, the same smirk he’d seen on his son, as he jabbed an elbow into Clarus Amicitia’s ribs. The Shield, as always, had a deep line of worry between his dark eyebrows, as if he were closely examining whatever lay in front of it. But Cor knew he was the only one currently refusing to ignore the fact that the former Marshall was obviously recovering from a panic attack in the embrace of his queens.

“Cor made a wonderful father,” Aulea chided, more to Cor than Regis. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders where he was still mostly hunched over and pulled him into her side. He was certainly 15 again, he thought dejectedly, if he was small enough to fit so securely there.

“I’m certain he would have made a wonderful husband as well.” She shifted her eyes down to him conspiracy, hoping her jokes would help lift his mood.

“You look miserable for a man who just entered heaven, son.” Clarus said, offering his hand to wife. Odessa frowned in refusal and draped herself over Cor’s other shoulder.

“You leave him alone, he’s having a tough time of it.” She glared, “Like you did, Reggie."

Regis’s lips twisted into a frown as he took stock of the still shaking form of his friend. Odessa was right, Cor looked wrecked. He had shifted into his 15 year old self, the solemn child they sent to protect him on what should have been a bachelor’s party road trip all those years ago. His hair was a mess, destroyed from the usually impeccable undercut he’d worn it in back then, the path of his anxious fingers casting it into a frenzied disarray. It was his eyes though, more anything, that had Regis’s heart sputtering, for the red rings around them made his pale blue eyes stand out in a sharp relief against the rest of his quickly shuttering expression.

Regis recognized this look, the way Cor’s brows pulled together, the nearly invisible line of his lips. He hadn’t sat up yet, likely unwilling to shrug off the embrace of the women at his sides, but there was something else there, a livewire under the trembling of his hands where he was suddenly pushing his hair back into some semblance of order.

Cor Leonis was looking for a fight.

“You’ve got the look of a man who needs to spar.” Regis declared, keeping his eyes firmly on the Marshall. Cor said nothing, but his form began to smoothly transition back and forth between an angry fifteen year old and a murderous thirty.

Despite this, Cor was careful as he extracted himself from Odessa and Aulea's protective grip. He stood, now all predatory grace, the lion Aulea had once called him and glared daggers so fierce at his king that Regis was certain he could feel their blades.   

“Yeah.” Cor said at last and between one blink and the next, the trio had seemingly transported from the wide, airy breezeways on the south side of the Citadel to the great training hall in the west. Cor only had a moment to feel almost sickeningly disoriented before Regis was tossing him a wooden practice sword.

“You get used to it.” Regis shrugged, settling into a crouch. He flicked his hair, dark in his youth, from his face and offered Cor a crooked grin. “Now then, do you wish to tell what’s got you so riled?”

Cor was fully aware that he was being baited but he was too caught up in his own hurricane of conflicting emotions to care. He lunged forward, striking low where Regis had always had a weakness. The king blocked and threw his own weight forward, pushing Cor back with a grunt. From the corner of his eye he saw Odessa and Aulea arrive on the observation deck overlooking the arena, but he paid them no mind as he launched himself into a series of bone rattling attacks. Each blow sent Regis skittering away, shuffling around him with a fencer's light feet as Cor refused to give an inch to allow for a counter attack.

The lack of restraint was a drastically different tactic than Cor’s usual style, and Regis took comfort from knowing that the onslaught could not last, especially considering that Cor’s form continued to flicker between his fifteen, thirty and forty-five year old selves. Eventually, he began to run out of rage and Regis was able to strike back, throwing his full weight into a brutal side swipe that Cor was only just able to block. He pushed back, ignorant of the sound of the wood’s stressed cracking.

“You sent me away!” He snarled, “You knew damn well what was going to happen and you sent me away!” Cor planted his right foot behind him and flung himself forward, knocking Regis’s sword down and away. Regis danced sideways, dodging as Cor spun himself to crush the black practice mat where Regis had just been. The former king was careful to stay just out of reach, waiting until Cor twisted back around to charge forward, again locking swords.

“I did what I had to-” Regis tried, but Cor wasn’t having it.

“The hell you did, I should have been there!” The forty-five year old was replaced with a stricken teenager, and Regis took advantage by twisting up and out, sending Cor down to the mats below and knocking his sword from his grip. Cor made to get up, but Regis tapped the tip of his practice blade against his adam’s apple, keeping him down.

“You were the only one I could trust!” And that was the King’s voice, low and demanding to be heard. “The only one. We had a duty!”

“It wasn’t fair-!”

“Of course not!” Regis hissed, slapping Cor’s hand when he went to grab for where his own practice sword lay abandoned next to him. The wood stung, but the pain of the blow was fleeting. Healing, Cor realized, but the wound could even fully form. “I played the hand I was dealt to the best of my ability, as poor as that may have been. I put my trust in you, to guide my son, and you did not let me down. You have _never_ disappointed me, Cor, and that it why it had to be you. There was nothing you could have done to save us that you did not already try. _Nothing._  Our fate was written in the stars-”

“Damn the stars!”

“Shut your blasphemous mouth for one damn second.” Regis whacked Cor’s elbow hard, eliciting a shout of surprised pain as the other man gripped the bone. “Shiva’s sake, Cor. Look at it from my perspective, would you. What could I have possibly done differently. Noctis had to survive, and someone had to explain what was happening to him. I needed _you_. Clarus would not leave me, he could not. Cid was far too old,”

“Oh, fuck you Regis.” Cid called from above.

Regis did not look away from Cor’s eyes as he raised his middle finger up to a chorus of giggles from Aulea and Odessa.  “-and Wehskam was in Altissia.”

Regis threw his sword aside and plopped himself down near Cor’s head, arms resting atop his knees. He wiped the trail of sweat away from his eyes and smiled grimly. Cor, spent, could no longer hold his glare and instead held out a trembling hand. Regis caught it immediately in both of his and squeeze hard enough to rub the bones together.

“I…” Cor threw his arm over his eyes and attempted to breathe deeply. In-two, three, out- two three, a forced rhythm to calm his wild pulse. When he spoke, his voice was thick and soft, unheard by their audience. “I missed you. I missed you all so much. I never… I took for granted the time we had together.”

“We all took it for granted, it is what people do my friend.” Regis said, “But you could not have done any better than you did. I am unspeakably proud of you. I’m pretty sure that if you let him, Clarus would even embrace you for what you’ve done for Iris and the rest of the children. We left you there alone, and for that I apologize, but we know our faith was not misplaced.”

“If y’all’re done down there, I suspect there are other people who wanna see the boy!” Cid shouted. Regis stood, and used the hand he still held to haul an unresistant Cor to his feet. Cor looked down, not yet composed enough to look at Regis, and found that he was suddenly clean, free of the sweat he’d worked up and, blessedly, once again a touch older.

“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right.” Regis patted the center of Cor’s back and lead him towards where Clarus and the others had gathered.

“Prompto may cry on you.” Clarus warned as they approached, “Prepare yourself.”

“I’m used to it.” Cor sighed.

 

* * *

 

The ‘kids,’ as Cid called them, were found basking in the sun in the largest of the Citadel’s gardens under a cloudless mid-day sky. Cor could hear them before he saw them, their laughter bouncing through the breezeway like light on the water. Aulea swept past her husband to link her arm through Cor's and fitted him with a knowing look, eyes bright with excitement and expectation.

The group didn’t want to be noticed and so for a minute or two, they weren’t. Instead, Cor was free to watch from between the tall marble columns as Gladiolus rolled his wide shoulders and charged at Ignis. They were both young, spry, choosing their twenty year old bodies to spar with. Ignis backflipped out of the way of the shield, vaulting over the practice spear with ease.

“I need some gil!” Prompto was hanging upside down from his legs in nearby tree, the blood rushing to his face causing his freckles to stand out even more than they normally did.

“That backflip is worth at least 20 bucks.” He continued, smiling down at Luna. She and Noctis were spread out on a black checkered picnic blanket just below him, but as Noctis’s 8-year old head was using her stomach as a pillow, it was safe to assume he was dead asleep.

“How dare you,” Ignis snapped, again dancing out of the way from Gladiolus’s lazy attempt at a grab, “That is at least a 2000 gil backflip.”

“Ooh burn!” Prompto called, eliciting giggles from Luna.

“You just burned yourself, idiot.” Gladiolus sighed, pausing from his match just long enough to shoot the boy an incredulous look.

“Oh I guess I- Cor!” Prompto had the self-awareness to be bashful about his mistake but as he glanced up, his gaze zeroed in on the Marshall and in his surprise he fell from the tree to a twisted heap on the ground in rain of dark green leaves. Noctis, roused by the shouting around him sat up as Luna gently shook his shoulder and pointed across the lawn.

“Ha! So much for ‘The Immortal’, huh?” Prompto laughed. He set off at a brisk jog across the lawn and yelped as Ignis swatted him upside the head as he passed.

“Tact, Prompto, tact.” Ignis sighed, but he struggled to summon the proper expression as Noctis loudly snorted behind him. Now fully awake, the Dawn King shifted in age to match the rest of his companions and allowed Luna to lace her arm through his. Gladiolus’s expression twisted into a reluctant grin, and Cor knew that the he was thinking of his sister.

“You finally made it!” Prompto cheered. Cor had thought that the young man was going to slow in his approach, but Aulea detangled herself from his arm and moved to grip Regis’s waist just in time for Prompto to crash into him at full speed. Cor rocked back with the impact and froze for a moment, startled by the ferocity with which the boy was hugging him.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for _years_ , man, years!” Despite the fact that his face was smushed against Cor’s shoulder, he had no trouble understanding the blonde. After a moment of hesitation, he returned the embrace, careful not to crush the still scrawny kid.

“Prom,” Noctis began, clearly going to tell the young man to leave him alone, but Cor put one hand up and fingers open before closing them in a fist, code for silence.

“We… I never got a chance to thank you,” Prompto said, face still buried in Cor’s shoulder, “Both back on the pier and… and before.”

“There is no need.” Cor said, resigning himself to having _many_ of these conversations.

“There is!” Prompto exclaimed, jumping back. Cor’s arms flopped to his side as a casted a sidelong glance at Regis and Clarus… only to find that the entire group had snuck off sometime after Prompto had ambushed him. He frowned at the ground where they once stood turned his attention back as Prompto took a deep breath, obviously gearing up for some sort of speech.

“Dude, there totally is!” He wasn’t quite shouting, but it was a near thing. He glanced behind him and scowled as he saw that the group standing behind him had also disappeared, or more, returned to the picnic blanket. Prompto snatched up Cor’s wrist and marched him over to rejoin the group, muttering violently under his breath about ungrateful heathens.

“ _We_ ,” He declared pointedly, gesturing at everyone behind him, “Owe you a lot…. Especially me. If it weren’t for you… and Noct and King Regis-”

“Urgh, Prom, no. Don’t call him that anymore.” Noctis groaned; his head was pillowed on Lunafreya’s lap and she balancing idly running her fingers through his hair and sipping from a large glass of what appeared to be some sort of pink wine, an expression of amusement painted across her pale features.

“Let him speak, Princess.” Gladiolus’s eyebrow was lifted in challenge, and Noctis took a moment to sit up and smile at Lunafreya before he pounced on the former shield. Lunafreya rolled her eyes hard enough to likely see her ancestors before allowing herself to fall to her left and rest her head on Ignis’s outstretched legs.

“Please continue, Prompto. You speak for all of us, especially those who are currently… preoccupied.” Ignis called, moving his hands to rest them behind his head. Prompto nodded to himself, psyching himself up with a rapid shuffle of his feet, and tried again.

“If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here.” He said in a rush, “Let’s be honest, if you hadn’t had enough faith me in to let me in the Crownsguard, to push me into training? I would have been in Insomnia... during the attack... and I know myself well enough to know I probably wouldn’t have made it out.”

“Son,” Cor sighed, taking in how the rest of the kids eyes were suddenly trained on the back of Prompto’s fluffy head despite their leisurely positions, “No matter what I said, I’m fairly certain Noctis would have snuck you out in the trunk of the Regalia.”

“That sounds about… Cor-rrect.” Ignis said, and he smiled as Luna’s surprised laughter overshadowed the groan that followed the pun.

“I’m trying! To say! Thank you! For saving me! _Us_!” Prompto was definitely shouting now, hands clenched into anxious fists as if he were afraid that Cor was somehow going to reject him, but he kept his eyes up, gaze locked with Cor’s in a show of bravery that was rather unexpected. “You showed us what to do, the… royal arms. You… did so much. Even after we were gone and… and it’s important that we say thank you.. Oh!”

Cor watched as Prompto’s form cycled, unnoticed, through his teens, the scrawny twenty year old, and finally the far, far too thin thirty year old he’d buried in the side of the mountain at Galdin Quay. It was when he stuttered for the last time, his form finally solidifying into that nervous teen that used to slink up and down the hallways of the Citadel as if expecting to be struck down, that Cor reached out, grabbed Prompto by the back of that stupid hairstyle and pulled him into his chest.

“Thank you, Prompto.” Cor said. Lunafreya had one hand pressed to her heart, and Cor knew there was still a shit ton the kid was probably working through, but he would be damned if he was going to allow the boy to look at him as if he were a possible threat.

Not here, not anymore.

The hands that threw themselves around his waist however, we not those of a teenager. Cor looked down, shocked to see that Prompto had been replaced by a small, round child. There was an age at which all kids began to look the same to Cor, but he guessed that the boy was no older than twelve or thirteen.

Cor looked up when he heard Gladiolus climb to his feet, he approached slowly, sneaking up behind Prompto, hands extended. Cor only just resisted the protective urge to pull the boy closer. But before he could act on his impulse, Gladiolus lunged forward, caught Prompto under his arms and threw the boy over his shoulder. The squeal that poured from Prompto’s lips was loud enough to shatter glass.

“Hey!”

“You’re doing it again.” Gladiolus explained, and Prompto brought his hands to his face and poked at his cheeks, taking in their sudden fullness, before slumping bonelessly over his friend’s shoulder.

“Every fucking time.” Prompto hissed. He didn’t seem to care that his face bounced against Gladio’s back with every step and he didn’t move when he was deposited none so gently onto the picnic blanket with the others. Gladiolus shot Cor a thumbs up, before pointed behind him.

“Let’s go, kid. We still got things to discuss.” Cid called, motioning with one hand for Cor to follow. Cid was leaning casually against the marble arch that marked the entrance to the garden and smirked at Cor from under the bill of his cap, still as bright red as the day he got it. “You’ve got all the time in the world to catch up with those ingrates."

Cor took a step forward and suddenly, something in him clicked. The final puzzle piece popping perfectly into place. Maybe it was the way the wind tossed his hair, or the sound of Noctis’s carefree laugh. Or the way the grass split under his boots, the way the sun bounced from the Citadel’s open windows above them. Or maybe it was the way that peace settled within his bones, the near constant furrow between his brows disappearing; but as he walked forward, gait free of the military march that had confined him for his entire life, Cor knew that he was finally, _finally_ home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! What a journey, huh?  
> I just love Cor so much, and I can't believe he wouldn't have been heavily involved in the rebuilding efforts and in taking care of everyone left behind. He's a duty bound old man in my mind, and despite how tired he is, he just keeps going.  
> ((And Prompto... can you tell?))
> 
> I still have little scenes in mind from this PawPaw!Cor universe, if ya'll are interested. Lemme know.


End file.
